


The Augurey

by Delphi



Series: Fantastic Beasts [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Comfort, Drama, Family, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 09:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Severus is bereaved and Silvanus is along for the ride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Augurey

Severus's father had the uncharacteristic consideration to die over the Christmas holidays. The letter arrived on the afternoon of December 28th and was left outside the barred window of his dungeon suite by a frustrated barn owl. Severus retrieved it soon after, dusted a sprinkling of snow off the envelope, and frowned at the return address. It was from his Aunt Greta, his mother's sister in Blackburn.

This wasn't a Christmas card. Severus knew that even before he turned over the envelope and saw the blob of black sealing wax.

For a moment, he simply held the deceptively light missive in his hands, existing in an odd state where what few blood relatives he had remaining to him were all at once potentially alive and dead. His grandfather could not be more than eighty-five or ninety, and anyway, wouldn't Aunt Greta assume that his mother would inform him...

His mother. The thought was swift and cold and enough to spur his hands into action. He tore open the envelope and yanked out the short note, reading it with haste.

_Dear Severus,_

_There is no easy way to deliver bad news. Your father has passed away. He was struck by a train in the small hours of the night._

_Your poor mother is in a nervous state and cannot see to the arrangements. I have told her that you will take care of everything. Please pack a bag for her when you are at the house, as she will be staying with us until she is recovered._

_I hope you will come in to say hello when you bring her things. We have not seen you since you were small and it would be nice to visit, even if this is a sad occasion._

_With Condolences,  
Your Auntie Greta_

Just like that, where hateful childhood wishes and his very first hex had failed, his father was now dead.

* * *

Severus's departure occurred in fits and starts.

_Struck by a train_. The phrase repeated itself continuously as he first headed for the door and then returned for his cloak; opened the door again and then thought to throw a few items into his travelling bag; opened the door once more and then halted in his tracks, wondering if he was somehow obligated to inform the headmaster of his impending absence.

No, he thought, imagining platitudes—or worse, some genuine attempt at sympathy. Classes would not resume for a week, and he had no students staying over for the holiday. A note would suffice. Or perhaps it would be better to leave word with Silvanus and let him deal with the consequences.

The tension in his stomach that had crept up on him unawares eased slightly. Yes, he would have a word with Silvanus before leaving.

His mind was quiet and unmoved as he navigated the corridors up to Silvanus's office—empty—and then down to his newest apartments, which sat at the end of a long line of unoccupied rooms. He stood outside the door for what felt like slightly too long before he raised his hand and knocked.

Silvanus opened the door a few seconds later and then froze when he saw him. "What's the matter? You look pale."

Severus meant to point out that he always looked pale, but instead he said: "My father's dead."

"Oh, darling." Silvanus clicked his tongue and took Severus firmly by the arm, drawing him inside. "Come in and sit down. When is the funeral?"

"I don't know," Severus said. A tinge of resentment unbecoming of the supposedly mournful coloured his voice. "Apparently I'm to arrange it."

"Are you taking the train or Flooing in?"

_Struck by a train_ , Severus thought again. "The train."

Silvanus consulted his pocket watch and nodded. "It's twenty past. That ought to give me enough time to pack a bag and leave Mouse with Rolanda. Why don't you go get a carriage ready?"

Severus stared at him blankly. "I wasn't inviting you."

He did not intend the words as a rebuke, but wondered if Silvanus had somehow misunderstood his reasons for informing him of the situation. Silvanus, fortunately, did not look put out. But neither was he deterred.

"I lost my mother six years ago. Believe me, you'll be grateful to have someone along to hold your place in queues and buy lunch while you're taking care of the important things."

Severus opened his mouth to argue, but Silvanus forestalled him with a raised hand before disappearing into the bedroom and audibly beginning to pack.

"I promise to accompany you entirely as an impartial observer. I won't interrupt unless you get drunk and need to be fished out of a body of water."

Had his father been drunk? The question struck him oddly, because he realised he had already assumed the answer. Surely the image had flashed through his mind of his father stumbling, weaving stupidly in the darkness until the light of a train suddenly flared, too close, too late. Except that one did not need to go anywhere near the train tracks to get from the pub back to Spinner's End.

He was still frowning when Silvanus re-emerged, a small suitcase in hand.

"A carriage," Silvanus said gently but firmly, and then he kissed Severus on the cheek and nudged him out the door.

* * *

Severus sat in the frigid carriage, watching through the half-frosted window as Silvanus briefed Madam Hooch on the other side of the courtyard. Silvanus was explaining something rapidly, gesturing firmly with his hands, and Madam Hooch looked past him for a moment and sent Severus a sympathetic grimace.

He could not judge whether it was meant to be a genuine expression of condolence for his loss, or whether it was the look of mock-sympathy she often sent him when she felt Silvanus was being exceptionally trying. He gave a vague wave nonetheless, and a few moments later Silvanus joined him in the carriage.

"Do you know, I don't think I've ever asked where you grew up," Silvanus said as the carriage set off around the lake.

He had, as a matter of fact—at least twice over the years previous, and Severus had heretofore avoided the question. There was no avoiding it now.

"Cokeworth," he said and then added out of habit, because no one had ever heard of it, "outside of Lancaster."

"Will I be meeting your mother?"

Severus took his eyes off the thestrals and watched Silvanus fuss with his cuffs and necktie. "No. She's staying with my aunt."

"Of course," Silvanus said. "This is a difficult time."

Severus crossed his arms, shrugging off the sentiment. "I don't believe my parents even liked each other. My father and I certainly weren't close. This is not...this is not an emergency."

"Ah," Silvanus said mildly. "I expect it will be a short trip, then."

They arrived at the station with several minutes to spare before the afternoon train south was scheduled to depart. At this end of the line, the train was empty, and they had their choice of seats. Severus swept through several carriages, back to the very last car, where he ensconced himself in the final compartment.

Silvanus joined him, taking the seat across from him and removing two oranges and a novel from his suitcase. He set one orange on the seat beside him and handed the other to Severus. Then he opened his book.

The train eventually left the station, and Severus wrapped his cloak more tightly around himself despite the relative warmth of the compartment and obscured his view with the condensation of his breath against the window. He was not particularly in the mood to make conversation, but it annoyed him that Silvanus had thought to bring something to read.

"How did your mother die?" he asked. Silvanus never spoke much about his parents. Or at least not since the earliest days of their acquaintance, before Severus's own disinclination to relay anecdotes in kind had apparently exiled the topic.

Silvanus glanced up from his reading and closed the book around a brass finger. "A stroke, eventually, but she had been poorly for years. Access to magical remedies prolonged her life, but she was quite aged for a Muggle."

"Were you close?"

The smile that spread across Silvanus's face was unabashedly warm. "Oh, yes. I suspect she saw me more as a junior colleague than a son, but we always got on very well. She was a remarkable woman—one of the first to study natural science at Oxford, you know."

"Is that so?" He was less intrigued by the credentials than by the admiration in Silvanus's voice.

"She wasn't admitted formally to the university until much later, of course. I remember being taken out of school to watch her matriculation. I'm not sure I appreciated the significance at the time, but we were all very proud."

Severus imagined the home in which someone like Silvanus would have grown up—an entire house in the style of Silvanus's office, wallpapered in books and busts and mounted insects behind glass. He wished suddenly that they were going there instead, and he frowned as he predicted Silvanus's reaction to Spinner's End.

Fine, he thought, his jaw tightening. Let him be disgusted. It would serve him right for insisting on coming along.

"I expect your parents had a very happy marriage," he said darkly.

If Silvanus took note of his tone, he gave no sign of it, looking as though he were considering the question carefully.

"I believe so, yes. They led rather separate lives—little crossover between their fields, you understand. And you know how mixed marriages can be. I don't think my mother was ever entirely comfortable with our world, but I like to think she and my father were content together."

"Is your father still alive?"

"He is. We write each other a few times a year—or more often, I write to his wife. She's much better at getting back to me."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "He remarried?"

"About five years ago now. Claudine. Lovely woman."

The sceptical set of Severus's brow must have said enough.

Silvanus cleared his throat. "Well, I can't say I know her all that well, but I'm glad for her existence. It's a comfort to know that someone is looking after his health."

"Still," Severus said, regarding him sharply, "you can't have been pleased that he remarried, what, a year after your mother's death?"

Silvanus frowned in gentle puzzlement. "Why not? He was in a terrible state after Mother passed—I was happy to see him recovered." He paused thoughtfully. "We don't really mate for life, we humans. Our romantic constructs are far too drastically cut off from the practicalities of reproduction for that. We're serial monogamists at best, as much as we'd like to count ourselves in good company amongst the wolves and swans."

"Quite," Severus said absently, looking out at the racing scenery.

"And why is it always wolves and swans that come to mind?" Silvanus mused. "Black vultures are much more fiercely monogamous than swans, you know. And certain varieties of parasitic worms..."

"My father was hit by a train," Severus said.

Silvanus straightened up. "Oh dear," he said. "I'm sorry. Accident or suicide?"

Severus turned to look at him once more, an almost helpless feeling of affection coursing through him at the fact that Silvanus would be so terrible as to ask such a thing.

"Accident," he said. "I expect he was drunk."

"Tsk," Silvanus said. "Such a waste."

Severus hummed in vague agreement and began peeling his orange. He spent much of the rest of the journey fussily picking pulp off each wedge before eating them. Silvanus read his book. Severus looked out the window. They changed trains at Severus's prompting in Lancaster and then disembarked at Cokeworth.

It was raining at the Cokeworth stop, which was no more than an unsheltered bench at the side of the tracks. This shouldn't have surprised him. It was never not raining in Cokeworth. He had neglected to bring an umbrella, however, and he scowled as the cold rain spat down on him.

His gaze slid down the tracks after the departing train. He wondered where it had happened. Surely there would be yellow tape if it had happened here, even if the rain had washed the blood away. No, his father would not have been trying to catch the train at night. His father never went anywhere. It must have been closer to the village.

"We can apparate from here," Severus said, drawing his wand and letting Silvanus take him by the arm.

He closed his eyes and felt the lurch of displacement overtake him. When he opened them again, he was home for the first time in four years.

They had come through into the narrow back garden in the dim grey of the late afternoon. The rain was falling more resentfully here, in slow, cold drops that slid down the back of Severus's neck as he rummaged around in his bag for his key, hoping his mother had never got around to changing the locks.

The house was chilly and dark. Silvanus's footsteps were conspicuously loud against the linoleum as he bustled on ahead, finding the light switches and then the radiator.

Severus lingered in the kitchen, feeling an ill-fitting strangeness. The curtains were different. Somehow he had imagined that nothing would change in his absence, but the curtains were different, and there was a new toaster, and a crooked stack of styrofoam takeaway containers were heaped on the counter. For a moment, he wondered if they had somehow come into the wrong house, but as he finally dragged his feet into the sitting room, he shook off his folly.

There was the same old battered sofa and chair in garish goldenrod with faded brown and violet flowers. There was the low bookshelf that held only three books, a handful of magazines, and some yellowing newspapers. There was the overflowing ashtray, and the hunkering old telly, and the faint stain on the pale green carpet where a full teapot had landed years ago.

Silvanus seemed not to notice any of it, however, and had headed straight for the mantel. He folded his hands behind his back and leaned forward, looking over the row of framed photographs as if he were at a museum exhibit.

"Oh my. You have your father's profile, but the rest is entirely your mother, isn't it?"

"I suppose," Severus said. He considered sitting down. His hand touched the back of the armchair, and then he joined Silvanus instead, looking at the photographs that he had looked upon so many times that they were nearly forgotten.

"Is this you?" Silvanus held up bleary, static black and white photograph.

"Yes," Severus sighed, frowning at the image of his three-year-old self, who frowned back from his enforced perch atop one of the low stone walls on his grandfather's farm.

"So plump," Silvanus mused. "And your nose hadn't come in yet. Do you think I could get a copy of this?"

The frame was dusty, which struck Severus as odd. His mother wasn't particularly house-proud, but she had always been fastidious about dusting and hoovering.

"What would you want a copy for?" He glanced up from the prints Silvanus's fingertips were smudging into the dust, scanning his face for some unseemly show of sentiment.

Silvanus shrugged easily, replacing the photograph. "A complete survey. Severus Slytherinum in juvenile, adolescent, and adult forms."

Severus decided to ignore him and refrain from inquiring if he had somehow got his hands on photographs of him as a teenager. "I need to pack some things for my mother."

He went upstairs alone. It was even colder there, as it always was. The door to his parents' bedroom was ajar, and yet Severus still hesitated, feeling as though he was trespassing when he stepped inside.

The bed was unmade. A cursory look around turned up no suitcase or travelling bag. He could not recall his parents ever taking a holiday. He took two pillowcases and used them to stow a handful of clothes plucked from the dresser drawers and wardrobe. There did not seem to be much to choose from, so in the end he took it all. It was not until he proceeded to the bathroom that a niggle of suspicion began to burrow once more in the back of his brain.

A tube of lipstick and one stray earring sat on the shelf next to the sink. Yet there was only one toothbrush in the cup, worn down to the frayed bristles that he associated with his father. He could find no hairbrush. Perhaps she had it in her handbag.

He went downstairs to find the Floo powder. His mother had always kept a few pinches of it for her occasional visits to Aunt Greta's or Grandad's. He rummaged through the pantry, finally coming up with an old margarine container which held a sprinkling of what he hoped was not washing-up powder.

"Are you on the network?" Silvanus asked, watching as Severus cast a flame into the fireplace.

"We used to be," Severus said. "If we're not any longer, I'm about to do myself an injury."

Silvanus stepped back to give him room and took off his cloak, presumably to beat out the flames if Severus caught alight.

"I won't be long," Severus said as he threw a pinch of powder onto the fire. "The Rookery!"

* * *

Severus's aunt and uncle lived in a tall, narrow house on the outskirts of Blackburn. He had not been there since he was thirteen years old, but as he staggered out of the fireplace, the picture of the stiff, starched sitting room and the aroma of a meal in progress were disarmingly familiar.

A thin, dark-haired figure peeked out from the kitchen. Her pinched features lightened when she saw him.

"Severus? Oh, look how you've grown."

Aunt Greta bore a strong resemblance to his mother, which had unnerved him as a very small child on his rare visits to the house, when he might accidentally tug on the wrong skirt for attention. Now, however, he had no trouble seeing the difference in the matronly crown of her braids and the bright smile on her face.

"Eileen!" Aunt Greta shouted. "Severus is here!"

She bustled over to him and wiped her hands on her apron before examining him at arm's length, seemingly pleased with what she saw. "You're just in time for tea."

He shook his head, holding up the pillowcases in vague explanation and embarrassed suddenly by the improvisation. "I only came to—"

"Nonsense," she interrupted. "You're as thin as a stick. Go wash your hands and sit down. The ham's almost ready."

Severus set down the pillowcases and proceeded uncertainly into the corridor, where he found the bathroom. He closed the door behind him and washed his hands. The water only barely muffled Aunt Greta's repeated shout:

"Eileen! Severus is here!"

What followed was not entirely the most awkward dinner Severus had ever endured, but only because he had on one very troubling occasion been sat next to a corpse at a Death Eater gathering. Aunt Greta smiled with forced cheer as Uncle Phineas carved the ham. Severus's mother, pale and hollow-eyed in a black dress, appeared in the doorway. She seemed to flinch when she saw him, although whether at the thought of their last meeting, when she had come to bail him out of a Ministry holding cell, or whether for something of his father she saw in his face, he could not say.

"Look at him," Aunt Greta enthused as the potatoes and veg were passed around. "He's the spitting image of Dad, isn't he?"

"The spitting image," Uncle Phineas echoed in general agreement, already cutting into his slice of ham.

"And teaching at Hogwarts," she said. "A Prince teaching at Hogwarts!"

"He isn't a Prince," Mam said sharply. They were the first words she'd spoken since sitting down, and they sounded brittle enough to snap.

Aunt Greta's smile disappeared. "It's a figure of speech, Eileen," she said.

Uncomfortable silence stretched for several moments.

"Just a figure of speech," Uncle Phineas finally agreed in a mumble.

The rest of the conversation took place in fits and starts around mouthfuls of mash and fussy little bread rolls. Aunt Greta and Uncle Phineas did not have any children—Aunt Greta having the weak constitution that plagued most of those Princes still living—but she had much to say about her nephews and nieces on Uncle Phineas's side of the family.

A few questions were prodded his way. No, he had not done much for Christmas. Yes, he was head of house for Slytherin, although more out of a lack of other candidates than anything else. No, he was not spending time with any young ladies.

"Well, you're still so young. A man shouldn't start thinking seriously about marriage until he's thirty," Aunt Greta declared and then launched into a lengthy and tone-deaf anecdote about the doomed marriages of various friends and family who had wed too young, which segued into a full description of Aunt Greta and Uncle Phineas's wedding, followed by a general complaint for the modern state of catering.

Mam got up before pudding was served, and when Severus saw her heading for the back door, he hesitantly followed her. She shrugged on her coat and was sitting at the little table in the back garden, lighting a cigarette, when he joined her.

Severus sat down on the other cold wrought-iron chair, both of them looking out at the garden wall. His robes were winter-weight and suitable for the dungeons, but his hands and face stung in the chill. The image of her black dress was seared into his mind. Was she mourning? 

"I told Greta you wouldn't come," Mam said flatly and then took a long drag. Smoke and steam floated on the air.

"Of course I came," he said. Not for his father, no, but for her.

She looked at him sideways, her gaze making it clear that there was no "of course" about it. Not after four years. Not after the last time he had seen her, when he had told her everything he'd done. Almost daringly at first, and then, by the end of it, sobbing like a child. Not after she had told him not to come back.

He tilted his head back, looking up at the dark, cloudy sky. "Did you ever tell him?" he finally asked.

"And give him the satisfaction? He always said there was something wrong with you."

A flicker of surprise made him straighten. Not at the second-hand sentiment, which had never been a secret, but at her lack of understanding. He would have expected her to see that the satisfaction would have been his. That Da would have been the one afraid of him for once.

He folded his arms and was silent for a time. Then, when he could bear it no longer, he asked:

"How long ago did you leave him?"

She took another long drag. "Eight days."

Severus supposed that she would not have been staying here. She would have had to be in town to hear about it. There had to be someone else, although he could not imagine it.

"If you were going to kill him," he said, remembering all the times his father had brokenly promised that he could not live without her, "you might have done it sooner—"

Her hand met his cheek before the words finished leaving his mouth. He rocked back with the force of it, the cold air making the contact burn like hex-fire.

He swallowed hard, tasting blood from a trickle on the inside of his cheek. She was trembling. He looked down at where her cigarette had fallen onto the table, still glowing. He picked it up and carefully handed it back to her. Then he rose to his feet and went back inside.

* * *

"You're not leaving already!" Aunt Greta cried.

Inside, his chilled skin prickled back to life, and his cheek immediately began to throb.

"I have to get an early start tomorrow," he said vaguely, trying to resist the urge to touch the sore spot.

"Are you sure you won't stay the night? I don't like to think about you alone in that damp, draughty place."

"I'm not...it's fine."

"At least take some cake," she said.

Only the fact that he was relying on her supply of Floo powder made him linger as Aunt Greta wrapped up a thick slice of chocolate sponge in waxed paper. She pressed it upon him, squeezing his hands, and then made him promise to come back soon before she let him go.

The telly was on when he returned to the house, flickering with the monochrome image of an advertisement for automobiles. Silvanus was soundly sleeping on the sofa, his prostheses off and his cloak draped over as a makeshift blanket. He did not stir as Severus skidded out of the Floo, and while under normal circumstance that utter lack of self-preservation might been merely exasperating, at that moment it made Severus clench his fists.

He made no attempt to be quiet as he went into the kitchen, boots stomping on the linoleum. A note was sitting on the kitchen table. He snatched it up.

_Severus,_

_I ordered take-away Chinese food. The remainder is in the icebox, for your enjoyment should you not have dined already. The council was closing up shop for the day when I contacted them, but I have ascertained the telephone numbers below, which may be of use._

_-SK_

Below was a list of contacts for the council, the coroner's office, the funeral home, a solicitor, and the bank.

He only barely resisted setting the note on fire. He wrenched open the refrigerator door instead and threw the cake inside.

Silvanus finally woke up, hair standing up and eyes blinking owlishly over the back of the sofa. He looked around briefly as if trying to orient himself. "Ah," he said. "Yes. How was your visit?"

Severus ignored him, riffling through the cupboards for drink.

"Not good, I take it," Silvanus said.

Severus lifted a bottle of gin to the light, finding it empty. The whisky was in a similar state.

"Honestly, darling, it's perfectly natural to feel—"

"Will you STOP CALLING ME THAT!" Severus shouted, his face flushing with angry heat. "I am not your 'darling', you idiotic—"

His teeth clicked shut, not because he feared to wound, but because no word that came to his tongue was hurtful enough. They were too childish, too puerile. Silly denunciations of effeminacy and invalidity.

Silvanus was, however, looking at him as if he had said it anyhow.

"Do you want to have an argument?" Silvanus asked. His voice was low and calm and quite frustratingly unhurt. "Because we can if you want to. I wouldn't recommend it, though. I think we would both be rather too good at it."

Severus was racked by a shudder of anger, but by some far reach of self-control, he held his tongue. It occurred to him that the first person he had ever bedded—the only person he had ever bedded, who seemed to be penning a biography on him besides—might have something far more cutting than "legless shirtlifter" to call him, even when still bleary-eyed with sleep.

"Go to hell," Severus finally muttered, setting the empty bottle down with a hard clank before sweeping out of the kitchen and stomping up the stairs.

The slamming of his bedroom door made such a satisfyingly nostalgic sound that he did it again, and again, and again, until the knob came off in his hand.

Then he stood there, his hand smarting and his ears hot with dwindling rage. He had to go to the toilet, he realised. He needed to brush his teeth. But he would have to fix the door to let himself out, and he knew that Silvanus would hear his feet in the corridor and count it as a victory.

Sourly, he lay down on the bed and hoped to wake up alone.

* * *

He had no such luck.

The sound of Silvanus's footsteps on the flimsy kitchen floor greeted him as he woke up very early the next morning, cold and under-slept and feeling hungover despite last night's sobriety. He had to piss so badly that he ended up limping to the bathroom. After relieving himself, he turned on the shower and waited until the water finally rose to tepid, and then he stood under the spray as long as the warmish water would last, giving Silvanus ample time to go away.

By the time he emerged, he could smell breakfast. Some of his old clothes were still hanging in the wardrobe—in fact, nothing in his room seemed to have been touched since he had moved out—and he dressed in a shirt and trousers that he supposed would pass muster in town before proceeding downstairs.

Silvanus stood at the hob, carefully flipping an egg. A pot of tinned beans bubbled beside him, and a small stack of toast sat on a plate.

Severus hesitated in the sitting room. He eyed the front door.

"Sit down," Silvanus said firmly.

He slunk in and sat down at the table. Silvanus set down two plates and dished out breakfast. Severus was the recipient of the rather more well-done toast and the egg with a broken yolk. It was very nearly a relief. He was in no mood for infinite mercy this morning.

Silvanus poured them each a cup of tea and then sat down across from him and broke a perfect golden yolk with a corner of toast. He didn't look as if he had slept any better than Severus had. The sofa was old and not very comfortable. He was still wearing yesterday's clothes, and his hair was disheveled in a way that would usually pique Severus's interest, which was perhaps what made Severus bite the inside of his cheek and apologise.

"I'm sorry," he muttered reluctantly at his plate.

When he looked up, Silvanus was regarding him with a raised eyebrow. "Are you sorry for picking a fight or merely sorry you were so terrible at it?"

Severus rolled his eyes, but he gave a soft snort in acknowledgement.

"I will accept your apology on two conditions," Silvanus declared.

Gaze narrowing, Severus nonetheless motioned for him to state his terms.

"I want a copy of the photograph on the mantel," Silvanus said firmly. "And I also want the cake in the refrigerator."

Severus scoffed, in as little mood for whimsy as he was for mercy, but one probing look proved that Silvanus was serious.

"All right," he said. "Fine."

"Good." Silvanus took a sip of his tea. "With that sorted, would you like some company today, or shall I stay in and do the ironing?"

It could not be put off any longer, and yet in his haste to get this business over with, he now found himself dragging his feet. He was tempted to give Silvanus a dour tour of Cokeworth, to see him examine this horrid town as he might some specimen of insect or microbe. It would have to be remedied with a trip to the bookshop, if the bookshop was even still open, and the unpleasant business would be further delayed by lunch...

"I'll take care of it," Severus said. "I'll be quick about it."

"All right," Silvanus said, shrugging equably, and finished his properly tanned toast with a calm that Severus at that moment envied.

* * *

The morning and afternoon passed in a long and interminable series of hard plastic chairs and sympathetic strangers.

"Is there a life insurance policy?" the coroner inquired. He was a small, elderly man who regarded Severus with an expression of grim pity over the rims of his spectacles.

Severus had been prepared—coldly curious, even—to see his father's corpse, but their meeting took place in a cramped, unremarkable office that smacked of underfunded government sterility.

"I don't know," he said. "I suppose my mother would, but she's taken to her bed."

The coroner nodded. "It's been recorded as death by misadventure," he said carefully, giving Severus a significant look. "Your father's blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit. I don't think he knew what he was doing."

Severus merely nodded. He was given a copy of the death certificate, a card for the funeral home, and a small cardboard box. He waited until he was outside to examine the last. He sat down on a damp bench and opened the box.

It contained his father's wallet and shoes.

A rough sound escaped Severus's throat, startling off a crow that had been pecking at the cracks between the pavement. The sound repeated itself, and only then did he manage to bite down on his cheek and quell the laughter. He wished suddenly that he had invited Silvanus along, because surely he would see the humour as well.

His father was dead. Had, in fact, been violently killed in such a manner that even the coroner had looked abashed as he'd muttered the words "closed casket." And here were his shoes.

There was just enough money in the wallet for Severus to procure lunch. He supposed going to the pub and raising a glass in honour of his old man would be more fitting, but Severus had no intention of doing anything so maudlin. He went to the cafe instead and sat across from the box in a corner booth, where he ordered tea and a sandwich.

He laid the death certificate atop the pitted table and read it through several times. Date and place of death. Date and place of birth. He had never in his life thought to wonder when his father's birthday was, but now he knew. Address. Cause of death. Name and surname of informant. It made no mention of next of kin—of Severus and his mother—as if their estrangement had already disappeared them from Cokeworth.

Severus ate his sandwich and drank his tea, taking care not to besmirch the certificate. Then he proceeded to the funeral home, where he was toured over thick-pile carpet through an array of glossy, ornate coffins before clearing his throat and insisting on cremation.

It was lazily snowing when he left the funeral home. The flakes would not settle, whipping about before evaporating on the pavement, and Severus drew his too-small jacket shut and followed the cold wind down the high street. He meant to go home, but his feet had other ideas. He walked on, directionless at first, merely seeking to escape the glances of half-familiar strangers into the quieter residential streets. By the time he realised where his feet were leading him, he could not stop them. He trudged on, uphill, to where the row houses grew wider and tidier, on to prettier gates and gardens.

Severus halted in front of one particular house with red brick and white trim. He stood there for a very long time, his hands growing cold and numb as he clutched the box containing his father's shoes. There were different curtains in the window here too—blue, not yellow—and a child's bicycle leaned against the gate. It wasn't the Evans house any longer; it hadn't been for a long time. They'd had that in common, Lily and Potter, heads bent solemnly together for half of sixth year, part of a private orphan's club. He wondered now what might have happened if his father had exhibited the courtesy to die a decade ago. He wondered why it had never occurred to _him_ to step in front of a train.

A car pulled up in the street. A man got out and regarded him with barely concealed suspicion. "Help you with something?"

Severus turned and walked away, following the old route from Lily's house to his own, with the old familiar ache in his stomach. The late afternoon was fading to darkness when he returned. He put his father's wallet in his pocket and left the shoes out on the kerb.

Inside, Silvanus was sat in front of the television, held rapt by some manner of shrill comedy featuring actors capering about in medieval garb. He pushed himself up off the sofa upon Severus's entrance, however, and hurriedly switched the programme off. He gave Severus an appraising glance and said: "I've revised my demands."

Severus, braced for concern, frowned. "Your demands?"

"In return for forgiving your bad manners. I've had time to think about it, and I have a third request."

"You can't do that," Severus said crossly, hanging up his coat and rubbing his numb hands together. "That is the very definition of wanting to have your cake and eat it too."

"It was excellent cake," Silvanus agreed. "Nonetheless, I want you to take me out to dinner at the nicest restaurant your fair hometown has to offer."

"That isn't how detente works," Severus said, carefully placing his father's wallet and the envelope containing the death certificate on the sideboard.

If he had suspected that Silvanus was at all sincerely about revoking his forgiveness, he would have let him, but he knew a game of distraction when he saw one and had no intention of being out-negotiated.

Silvanus raised a stubborn eyebrow. "Says who?"

"The International Decree of Magical Cooperation."

"I declare myself a sovereign state," Silvanus declared.

"Is this the beginning of an extended war metaphor that will lead to other things?" Severus asked, not entirely interested but not entirely averse.

"Sex?" Silvanus said, looking very pleased with himself. "Not if you don't buy me dinner first."

"You've waited rather late in life to get choosy," Severus pointed out.

"Oh, I'm very choosy," Silvanus said, smiling that particularly vulpine smile that made Severus revise his prior determination of being not entirely interested. "Hardly chaste, but choosy."

"Mm," Severus hummed appreciatively. "But I'm still not buying you dinner."

Silvanus frowned and collapsed back onto the sofa in a dramatic huff of defeat. "Fine, fine. I'll buy you dinner."

"Fine," Severus said, smiling smugly for all of three seconds before his eyes narrowed in suspicion that he had just been outwitted.

"Will we need a reservation?" Silvanus asked.

"We are not going anywhere nice. I haven't got the clothes for it."

Silvanus looked at him in measurement, seemingly undeterred. "Do they still insist on jackets and neckties? I'm certain I have a spare..."

Only one thing could make this day worse, and that was tweed.

Severus sighed. "Give me a moment."

He climbed the stairs to his parents' room and opened the wardrobe. His fingertips brushed over the row of shirtsleeves along his father's side. He had spent much of his later childhood outfitted in his father's cast-offs, and for every family Christmas party put on by the mill—for every funeral—he had been lent one of his father's jackets and ties, because it would be throwing away money to buy anything Muggle for him if he was only going to go away to school and outgrow it.

The black jacket was the least objectionable. He raised it briefly, quite without thought, and gave a quick, curious sniff, his mind cast back to age six or seven, and the way he would lean against his father's armchair during a football match, breathing in the reassuring aroma of beer and tobacco, pretending to be interested in whether Morecambe scored and secretly willing his father's attention to turn to him.

But the jacket only smelled of laundry powder and the vague mustiness that pervaded everything in this wretched house.

He was knotting a greenish necktie with unpracticed hands as he went back downstairs. Silvanus had exchanged his over-robe for a tweed jacket, effecting a rather convincing transformation from wizard to Muggle.

"Don't you look dashing," Silvanus said, approaching and taking charge of the necktie endeavour. Even with a set of false fingers, he managed a better job of it.

"I don't," Severus said. He was fairly certain the jacket didn't match his trousers, and the tie was only a few whorls away from paisley.

"It was a statement, not a question," Silvanus said, "predicated upon the fact that your arse looks very well in trousers."

"Lech," Severus said, fiddling with the knotted tie and buttoning his jacket.

"Absolutely," Silvanus agreed, heading towards the kitchen telephone. "Now tell me where we're going so that I can ring a taxi cab."

* * *

Agostino's met the definition of the nicest restaurant in town by virtue of being the only one that featured tablecloths. Severus had never been there, but he knew it by reputation. His parents had more than once announced their intention to go for their anniversary, but he could not recall if they had ever made it out the door after the inevitable last-minute rows.

He turned his mind from the memory of slamming doors and breaking glass, distracted by the oddly seamless manner in which Silvanus led the way into Muggle Cokeworth: signalling the taxi cab as it drew up to the kerb, fastening his seat belt on the first attempt, drawing a crisp banknote from his wallet upon their arrival and then slipping a tip into the driver's hand when the man came around to open the door as he levered himself out of the taxi with his walking stick.

The restaurant proved to be sadder than the coroner's. It was a dimly lit, overwrought establishment. The tablecloths were pink and anchored with thick green glass candle holders. A handful of couples and one large, noisy family sat scattered throughout the dining room, and a haze of cigarette smoke hung from the ceiling. Silvanus looked about with an expression of mild interest, and when they were shown to a table, his hand found the small of Severus's back, guiding him ahead.

Severus was aware of people stealing glances at them. For a moment he wondered if they recognized him, but he had been away for many years and did not resemble his father so strongly that it should draw stares, even considering the circumstances. Next was the thought that Silvanus’s brass fingers were insufficiently discreet; it was a low-level enchantment, but strictly speaking Silvanus ought to have been wearing gloves. Then the young hostess blushed as she seated them and left the menus gingerly, and he remembered where they were.

"This was a terrible idea," he said, slouching in the uncomfortable vinyl-upholstered chair.

Silvanus looked over the menu with an air of interest. "Oh, I don’t know about that. The food looks good."

"That isn’t what I meant."

"I know," Silvanus replied lightly, "but there’s wine."

There was indeed wine. Silvanus ordered a full bottle of red that looked as though it would get the job done. By the time they were a glass in and the food had arrived, people had largely stopped looking at them—realizing, perhaps, that they were not going to start having sex on the table and were in fact merely two colleagues out to dinner in a town with precious few options.

The veal was actually quite nice. Severus did not want to have an appetite, but he did, tucking in grimly to his meat and undersized potatoes as Silvanus politely dissected the layers of lasagne.

"I've decided to go back tomorrow," Severus said. "To Hogwarts."

Silvanus ceased his inspection of his meal and cut himself a bite. "Oh, good. Everything's been taken care of?"

Severus felt his chin jut out stubbornly. "If she wants a funeral, she can throw it herself. I've done everything that can be expected."

He was expecting an argument and was in fact prepared to defend his statement with much more pressing and logical reasoning than the fact that he hated it here and wanted to be finished.

All Silvanus said was: "Quite."

Severus watched him neatly chew and waited for the "However," or "On the other hand," or "Have you considered?"

Silvanus tried his salad and looked momentarily disappointed before returning to his lasagne.

"Even if I owed her anything," Severus said, aware that he likely did, "she obviously doesn't want me here."

"Would it make you feel better to stay?" Silvanus asked.

"No," Severus said shortly.

Silvanus shrugged. "Then don't."

"If you're trying to goad me into admitting that I ought to say some tearful farewell to him for my own well-being—"

The look Silvanus gave him was withering.

"Honestly, darling. That self-actualization business has always put me in mind of cannibalism. 'Consume yourself and you will gain your own powers.' It's tosh."

Severus was silent for a moment and emptied his wine glass.

"May I try some of that veal?" Silvanus asked.

"No," Severus said, warding him off with his fork. Then, after a moment, he relented with a sigh. "Fine."

Silvanus smiled warmly at him and took a slice, and a potato as well. "We should stop somewhere on the way back."

"What do you mean? Where?"

Silvanus shrugged. "Edinburgh? I could do with a nice hotel and some book-shopping before the term starts."

Severus turned the suggestion over, inspecting it for pity. It came up clean, tinged only with a certain selfish pragmatism that he was by now accustomed to and which inevitably comforted him in his own inclinations.

"If you'd like," he said, and Silvanus smiled. 

They made their way back to Spinner's End later that night, having put away an altogether inadvisable amount of wine between them and—at Silvanus's insistence—some manner of boozy trifle besides. Silvanus paid the taxi cab driver as Severus fumbled with his key, eventually getting the door unlocked and then letting the fiddly thing fall to the floor with a small clatter. Inside, the house was quieter than he ever remembered it being. It was already starting to feel like a place where nobody lived.

Silvanus caught up, pressing warm against him as they crowded together in the entranceway. He was humming some half-familiar song softly, in bits and pieces, and his arm slipped around Severus's waist. Severus swayed, drunk and disoriented, and kicked his shoes off. 

He wondered suddenly who would get his shoes when he died—if they would be left out on the kerb for a vagrant. The image of a train flickered through his mind, leaving Cokeworth. Edinburgh. Lights flashing suddenly in the darkness. 

"Come upstairs," he said softly, his fingers curling in the sleeve of Silvanus's jacket. "You'll ruin your back on that sofa."


End file.
